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This semester, I took an anthropology seminar called Anthropology & Sexualities. We spent each three-hour class meeting discussing various practices around the world that have to do with sex, sexuality, gender identity, and rituals. So, when Kate announced to us that we were jumping back into our theme weeks with a “Sex Around The Globe” theme, I was pumped! It took a pretty serious process of elimination to figure out what I wasn’t going to write about, and finally, I settled on the fascinating rituals of male rites of passage in Papua New Guinea. The Sambia of Papua New Guinea are one of many cultures that practice rite of passage rituals. Continue Reading →

Men vary in the amount of pre-ejaculate (precum) that they produce. Some seem to make very little and it may or may not visibly release from a man’s urethra at the tip of his penis when he’s feeling sexually aroused. Other men definitely notice a fair amount of pre-ejaculate and it’s not unusual for a man’s pre-ejaculate to soak through his underwear. However, it’s less common for men to produce so much pre-ejaculate that it soaks through several layers of clothing. And yet, in my 10+ years of working as a sexuality educator and researcher, I’ve spoken with several men who emit so much pre-ejaculate during sexual arousal that they may wear extra layers or underwear or clothing to prevent their dates from noticing their “wetness.” Continue Reading →

While searching for scientific articles related to (human) male ejaculation earlier this week, I stumbled upon an article about camel semen. Not being one to pass up new knowledge, I skimmed through the article’s abstract only to find that the researchers alluded to the fact that they used a “rubber funnel type of artificial vagina” to collect semen from male camels. Now, I study sex. And I also study what people do with sex toys such as vibrators and pocket pussies (male masturbation sleeves, in which human men insert their penis, rub it up and down, and then – in many cases – ejaculate). But a pocket pussy for camels? Continue Reading →

Many men and women wonder whether pre-ejaculate (commonly known as pre-cum) can cause pregnancy if a man’s pre-ejaculate gets near or inside a woman’s vagina during sex without a condom. The answer? Usually not but, in some cases, maybe. Here’s why:

1. Pre-ejaculate is composed of fluid made by the Cowper glands, two small glands inside the body toward the base of a man’s penis (and possibly some other small glands contribute to this fluid, too). Continue Reading →

Recently I was teaching at a college dorm program and a guy made a comment about how men’s orgasms are “like shot guns” and have this one big powerful thrust whereas women’s, he said, are more like semi-automatics and keep going. This is kind of a Vagina Monologues reference (to paraphrase the line “who needs a handgun when you’ve got a semi-automatic” about vibrators) but it also reflects a more general idea that many people have about men’s and women’s orgasms.
There is much I could write about on this topic and we’ll get to more of the complexities (and the basics, too) on other days. For now, however, let me say this: though many young men find that they can hit the ceiling with their ejaculate or may even have to use the “hand shield” move to keep semen from flying into their partner’s face if they are coming on the partner’s stomach, with age comes the Dribble Factor for many men. As in, there tends to be less thrust and more “gentle spillage” or dribble of semen from the urethra. This is a common experience with aging and many men in their forties and fifties notice some change in the thrust of their ejaculate. Continue Reading →

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